Lisbon Treaty: what will happen next

On December 15, 2001, at the Laeken Summit, EU leaders agreed to adopt a European Constitution. The next day, I launched the “No” campaign, attacking their scheme in an article in The Sunday Telegraph. Mine was the first voice to be raised in favour of a referendum; many more were to follow.

Sometimes, I feel I am trapped in a kind of Nietzschean Eternal Recurrence. For seven-and-a-half years, I have been biffing away at the same treaty. It has been killed off many times: 54 per cent of French voters, 62 per cent of Dutch voters and 53 per cent of Irish voters said “No”. But the monster just plucks the stake from its heart and carries on. However many silver bullets thud into its decomposing flesh, nothing seems to fell it.

Here I am at the beginning of my third mandate as an MEP and we’re still arguing about the same bloody treaty. This time, its supporters are looking cocky, believing that they have finally worn the sceptics down. Ireland, they confidently predict, will roll over in the second referendum, now officially called for October 2. Once the Irish withdraw their opposition, the Czech and Polish presidents will have no excuse to delay signing any longer. The 27 instruments of ratification will be deposited in the vaults of the Italian Government in October, and the treaty will come into force on November 1.

All of this may come to pass. But don’t imagine that we eurosceptics are sitting around waiting to be defeated. The judgment of the Germany’s Bundesverfassungsgericht is more significant than some people realise. At the very least, there is now a prospect of further delay in that country: even if the Bundestag were to alter its statutes as required, there might be a second legal challenge claiming that the amendments were insufficient.In any case, democrats in every other EU state can now fairly argue that they want the same rights as the Germans. And who can deny the force of their claim? Who can argue that, while Germany has given its national parliamentarians more direct control over EU decisions, other countries should not have the same safeguards?

It all comes down to Britain. Euro-integrationists will move Heaven and Earth to ratify the European Constitution Lisbon Treaty before David Cameron comes to office. Peter Mandelson is their agent, as I explain here. Eurocrats know that the Tory leader would hold a referendum on his very first day: he has even drafted the Bill in advance. In their determination to wedge Gordon Brown in place, they are doing huge damage to him, to Labour and to British democracy – all of which would be justified, in their minds, by the implementation of Lisbon. What, though, if they make all these sacrifices and then lose anyway?